By 2050, nearly one in five Americans (19%) will be an immigrant, including Hispanics, Blacks and Asians, compared with one in eight (12%) in 2005 (Pew Research Center, 2008). Prior research indicates the prevalence of population mental health disparities across ethnic and racial minority groups. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (2009) estimates that eliminating racial/ethnic minority health disparities would have reduced indirect costs in the United States associated with illness and premature death by more than $1 trillion between 2003 and 2006 alone. Given this increase in cultural diversity within the United States and the existence of costly population health disparities across cultural groups, it is essential to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how culture affects basic psychological and biological mechanisms underlying mental health across diverse communities as well as how such basic research in culture and health can be translated in applied settings to reduce population health disparities in quality and access to treatment for illness. The goal of the proposed grant is to implement a series of scientific meetings and infrastructural initiatives to create interdisciplinary teams of basic behavioral and social scientists that adopt a cultural neuroscience approach to addressing questions central to culture and health, particularly global mental health and population mental health disparities. Our goal is to create and sustain an international, interdisciplinary community of scientists that will allow for the acceleration, expansion, and strengthening of the scope of investigation in the emerging field of cultural neuroscience as well as to increase the sophistication of theoretical, methodological, and analytical approaches in cultural neuroscience. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of the proposed grant is to implement a series of scientific meetings and infrastructural initiatives to create interdisciplinary teams of behavioral and social scientists that adopt a cultural neuroscience approach to addressing questions central to culture and health, particularly global mental health and population mental health disparities.